


unkosher

by peacetime_resistance



Category: Saving Hope
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-07
Updated: 2016-03-10
Packaged: 2018-05-23 22:31:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6132241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peacetime_resistance/pseuds/peacetime_resistance
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>So, the kosher salad bar at “Daddy’s Crab Leg Crab Shack”, as it turns out, is terrible.</p><p>The sort of terrible that Sydney imagines would probably send her poor bubbe Esther rolling about in her grave.</p><p>A post 3x15 fic detailing what happens after Sydney, Maggie and Dr. Dey go to “Daddy’s Crab Leg Crab Shack”.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So, I wrote this a long time ago but with university exams and all the stuff that happens in life in general, I felt uninspired and it was left unfinished for a long time. I'm trying to finish the things I've started now (I know, what a terrible new years' resolution), so this is why it's being posted (also watching Sydney/Maggie videos made me feel a little nostalgic and kind of got me writing again). Hopefully, the rest of the chapters will be posted soon. I anticipate it will be another two chapters. 
> 
> This is my first time ever posting a fic, but I nevertheless appreciate constructive feedback - so feel free to comment on how I should improve it or what you liked about it. Otherwise, leave some kudos so I know whether you liked it in general or not! My only hope is that I've done justice in showing Sydney and Maggie's relationship.
> 
> *Please excuse any mistakes in Torontian geography or Jewish terms! I tried my best to research and uncover as much as I could about these topics, while writing the story.

So, the kosher salad bar at “Daddy’s Crab Leg Crab Shack”, as it turns out, is _terrible_.

The sort of terrible that Sydney imagines would probably send her poor bubbe Esther rolling about in her grave, if she ever found out that her only beloved grandchild was consuming such awful kosher food. Still, even as Sydney finds herself picking apart rubbery chicken and wilted lettuce leaves with a fork, she can’t help but think to herself that this is the most she has enjoyed herself at a dinner in years - which is saying a lot, given the awkward menage a trois situation Sydney, Maggie and Dr. Dey are currently in. 

Sydney chalks up her enjoyment to the fact that she's probably a little drunk, with the way the alcohol has been pleasantly thrumming in her veins over the last half an hour and how her words have begun to slur as they leave her mouth, but she can't exactly be sure -  _well_ , because she's drunk. But if the way Maggie and Dr. Dey haven't been able to refrain themselves from giggling for the last five minutes is any indication, they've all been enjoying this dinner a little too much.

"So, the imaging came back and there was this object lit up in the area of his rectum that looked awfully like a - "

Maggie pauses and looks around at the other tables in the restaurant, before finishing off the rest of her sentence: 

"- a vibrator," 

The last words are barely whispered, but it's just loud enough to send Sydney and Dr. Dey erupting into a fit of laughter. It's Maggie's turn to tell the table about her most embarrassing experience while being a doctor and she's recounting the time she had to remove a vibrator from the rectum of a patient using a speculum (Ok, so hospital policy dictates that they shouldn't be talking about this as a matter of doctor-patient confidentiality, but Sydney is pretty sure all that got thrown out the window approximately two drinks ago).

"And how did he take it? Not as well as the vibrator I assume," Dr. Dey says with a chuckle and Sydney laughs so hard that she almost sprays the whole table with white wine.

"I didn't get to tell him exactly ... I maybe kind of got Zach to do it for me instead," Maggie says all in one rushed breath, before covering her face with her hands and laughing. "I totally owed him two night shifts afterwards, though".

There's a loud burst of laughter from Sydney and Dr. Dey's part of the table again before, Dr. Dey is standing up and insisting on pouring them all another round of drinks.

"You know, I'm a little surprised that you didn't find any anal beads along with that vibrator, as well Maggie" he says, while pouring Maggie's wineglass.

"Oh, so that's what  _you're_ into, Dr. Dey. A little BDSM, eh?" There's a classic "Maggie" eyebrow wiggle and Sydney practically rolls her eyes at Maggie in response, because Maggie is just being so - Maggie.

Dr. Dey doesn't let Maggie get so easily off the hook though and he winks at Sydney, just before waving a half-bitten crab leg in Maggie's direction, "Seeing that I only just stopped my celibacy experiment and that celibacy until marriage is one of the tenets of Judaism, I think it's safe to assume that you're the only one who isn't practising celibacy on this table, Dr. Lin. Perhaps you're projecting?"

It's a little dark at their booth with the only light in the restaurant coming from the yellow fairylights lining the ceiling beams above them, but even Sydney can see from across the table the light pink blush dusting across Maggie's cheeks. There's a beat of silence, before Maggie is looking over at Sydney with a small smile and replying "Well, celibate in theory at least."

 


	2. Chapter 2

When they're finally finished up with dinner, it's close to midnight and Sydney is internally groaning at the prospect of having to wake up early tomorrow for her 6:00am rounds. Dr. Dey is standing out on the kerb attempting to flag down a cab and so for the first time tonight, Sydney actually finds herself alone with Maggie. It's about 3°C out (if there's one thing she hates about Canada, it's the winters) and both Sydney and Maggie have resorted to huddling together in an effort to curb getting frostbite on their toes until a cab arrives. Sydney knows that she should probably be attempting some form of a conversation with Maggie as they wait for the cab, but it's kind of hard to make conversation, when Maggie is this close to her and all she can think about is the way Maggie's breaths are condensing and tickling the very skin of her cheeks.

"Soooo, 6:00am rounds tomorrow - maybe you could do me a favour and just kill me now please," Maggie jokes, pulling Sydney out of her thoughts.

There's a small laugh from Sydney and then she's shaking her head. "I don't think the Hippocratic Oath would allow me to do that Dr. Lin, but I can promise to get you a coffee first thing in the morning".

Maggie looks at her like she is a godsend and Sydney feels her heart begin to beat at an embarrassingly fast pace.

"Really? Could you just maybe grab me a... " Maggie hums in thought, bringing a finger to her chin, before settling on her usual order. 

"A skim mocha with -"

 _An extra shot of espresso._  

 

Sydney doesn't think that the words come out of her mouth, but they must have anyway because Maggie is looking at her with this incredulous look on her face. Something between crippling embarrassment and extreme mortification settles over Sydney and Sydney is left quietly wishing for a hole to open up and just swallow her whole, so that she can spend the rest of her life wasting away in it. Because although Maggie is drunk, she is _certainly_  going to remember this come tomorrow.  

"Yeah, - that's right... but, how did you know my coffee order?"

Sydney knows a lot of things about Maggie. From the way her nose twitches whenever she fibs to the fact that Maggie still crosses her fingers every time just before she goes into the OR to operate. Maggie removes pickles from every burger she has and has this thing, where she likes to clasp her hands together just beneath her chest as she's sleeping. Out of her two eyebrows, it is statistically more likely that Maggie will quirk her left eyebrow rather than her right one, and ask Maggie any day of the week and Maggie will always swear up and down her allegiance to the Toronto Maple Leafs without a second thought.

But what Sydney doesn't know is how to tell Maggie why she knows all those things, because that would involve something akin to a declaration of love and Sydney is not so sure, if either of them are ready for that just yet. So, Sydney _scrambles_  instead for an excuse, anything which might remotely justify why it is that Sydney knows Maggie's exact coffee order without letting out the fact that maybe Sydney is crazy in love with her -

Until what can only be deemed as an act of divine intervention ( _baruch Hashem_ ), Dr. Dey is approaching them and Maggie has to physically turn away from Sydney to talk to him. Sydney lets out an unsteady breath from sheer relief.

"Maggie, which way are you heading home again?" Dr. Dey asks, pulling his coat a little closer towards his body and shoving his hands in his pockets, in an attempt to fight the frigid cold.

Maggie still looks a little preoccupied in her thoughts with the fact that Sydney knows her coffee order, but she casts the expression on her face away when she answers Dr. Dey. "Oh, I live just up in Yonge and Eglinton,"

"Young and eligible, you mean" There's a boyish smile that plays across Dr. Dey's lips and Sydney momentarily feels herself getting a little jealous, because she's sure that even Maggie would have found that smile adorable. "And what about you, Sydney?"

"Oh - I'm up north as well,"

"Forest Hill, actually" Sydney adds, a little disjointedly.

"I guess, I'll let you two catch the cab together then - I actually don't live too far from here, so I think I'm going to just walk home,"

There's a small protest from Sydney and Maggie with both of them insisting that he should take the cab with them and get dropped off right by his house. But Dr. Dey resists, adamant that they shouldn't have to pay an extra $15 on top of the cab charge just for him, and before they know it, they're exchanging goodbyes with him.  

"Dr. Katz, thanks again for the dinner,"

"It was lovely having it with you Dr. Dey," 

Dr. Dey moves towards Sydney first, wrapping her up in a gentle hug, before turning to Maggie. "Uh Maggie, thanks for the good company and the free psychotherapy session. I, uh - appreciate it,"  

The last words linger on Dr. Dey's lips and it becomes clear to Sydney that he is hoping for more than just a hug from Maggie tonight. Dr. Dey takes a step closer towards Maggie, his hand reaching for her cheek, and all at once, Sydney feels as if she's intruding on an intimate moment privy only to the two people in front of her. A wave of déjà vu washes over her and then, all Sydney can think about is how Maggie is Neshama and Dr. Dey is just another person more willing to go after and kiss the person Sydney is in love with. And part of Sydney knows that she should just turn away now as a final act of self-preservation, but she needs to know if she is too late for Maggie or not.

So, Sydney waits and waits for what feels like a lifetime, before she catches the movement of Dr. Dey's head towards Maggie's and the remnants of a whisper in Maggie's ear. There's a quick, chaste kiss placed against Maggie's cheek and then before Sydney knows it, Dr. Dey is gone leaving Sydney alone again with Maggie for the second time tonight.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this is the chapter, where the piece gets its namesake from.
> 
> Sorry for the long wait, the words just never really felt right until today when I just couldn't stop writing. Hope you enjoy this last chapter. I would love it if you left some comments or even, some kudos. Thanks!

When Sydney walks over to Maggie, Maggie looks like she is still in a stupor from the kiss Dr. Dey gave her and it’s so petty, but Sydney has to fight the small surge of jealousy that courses through her.

“Sydney! -" 

"James - he just, uh, said that there would be a taxi arriving in a few minutes,” Maggie stumbles all over her words and maybe if this were any other situation, the sight of seeing Maggie so flustered and nervous would have dismantled Sydney, made her come apart right at the very seams. But this isn't any other situation and Sydney just feels an emptiness thrum from deep inside her bones.

"Ok - fine."

The reply isn't meant to sound so sharp and bitter when it leaves Sydney's tongue, but it comes out that way anyway and Sydney feels the air between her and Maggie stale. The thing is Sydney  **knows** that she has absolutely no right to be mad at Maggie - it's not like they're even girlfriends anyway and this whole dinner was meant to be between Dr. Dey and Maggie in the first place. But Sydney can't help feeling like it, when everything just sort of seems _wrong_ somehow and there's this tightening feeling in her chest like her lungs are quickly filling with fluid and she's about to drown in a pulmonary edema.

Maggie looks at her as if she's trying to figure out if something is wrong and Sydney feels a prickly guilt settle under her skin for acting as if Maggie just completely killed the vibe at her _bat miztvah._    

Sydney sighs and decides to apologise. “I’m sorry, I ruined your dinner plans with Dr. Dey – I really shouldn’t have accepted your invitation,"

There's a soft smile on Maggie's face, before she shrugs off the apology with a small laugh. "Don't worry about it, it's not like it was a date or anything,"

“You know, I actually thought – ”

There's a pause and Sydney can tell that Maggie is seriously considering backtracking on whatever train of thought she is on, with the way she has suddenly refrained from rocking back and forth on the balls of her feet and how her gaze has moved from Sydney’s eyes to fix awkwardly at the ground instead. The hesitation only lasts for a second, though, because Maggie decides to finish off the thought anyway:

“I thought for a second back there, when we were in the elevator this morning, that you were going to ask me out on a date to this place, but uh – ”

“I was.” The words tumble out from Sydney’s mouth a little too fast and Sydney mentally chastises herself for having that third glass of wine at dinner.

“Oh… you were - going to ask me?”

"I was - going to ask you whether you wanted to come with me to ‘Daddy’s Crab Leg Crab Shack’ back there in the elevator, but when I saw you standing there and I – I don’t know why, but I started second-guessing myself”. Sydney just stops herself short of saying it was because she was scared, because that is absolutely the last thing in the world she wants Maggie to think of her as.

Maggie seems more than a little confused by the admission, though, because the next thing she asks is:

“Wait, so you were going to ask me out to a restaurant where you could only consume about 5% of the menu?”.

The answer sticks to the back of Sydney’s throat and it takes a while for Sydney to even get the words out. “I figured that no self-respecting Jew from my Orthodox community would be caught dead within a 20km radius of ‘Daddy’s Crab Leg Crab Shack’,”

It comes to Maggie like fluorescent lighting and Sydney has to immediately look away, because she’s not sure if she can stand Maggie looking at her and judging her for wanting to hide Maggie away like some sordid secret. None of this is going the way Sydney had planned it all in her head this morning and Sydney brings a hand up to her head to rub at her left temple. She doesn't even know where to start.

"Look Maggie, I - I don’t know how to approach this - ", Sydney gestures wildly in front of her, not knowing how exactly to describe what they have between them but knowing that “relationship” is the one term she should probably avoid, “- this ‘thing’ with you. I’ve never been with a girl before, let alone one that I’m meant to be supervising in obestrics and making sure she passes her boards at the end of her residency. I don’t know if I’m going to be able to hold your hand in public or kiss you in the middle of the street. I haven’t even figured out how to come out to my parents or Herschel any by extension, the whole Orthodox community in Forest Hill. But what I do know is that for the past 27 years of my life, I’ve been hiding this – this part of me deep down inside. And maybe if I hadn’t met you, I might have been able to do it for the next 27 years of my life. But you came into my life Maggie and I don’t think I can go back to it now, because if you haven't already realised, I like you."

"Like a lot.”

Sydney knows that she shouldn’t expect a kiss after that humdrum confession, but the silly thing is that a part of her still hopes for one. So, when Maggie takes a step into the space between them and presses her lips against Sydney’s, Sydney feels nothing but euphoria pass through her body. Maggie kisses her slow and eager, backing them up into a wall of the restaurant, and Sydney inadvertently finds herself drawing comparisons between the way Maggie kisses her and the way Herschel kisses her. Whereas Herschel is gentle and timid, Maggie kisses with this all-consuming want – teeth all grazing across Sydney’s bottom lip and fingers lifting up at Sydney’s shirt to touch Sydney’s skin at every chance she can get. It feels like coming home for Sydney, and Sydney responds to all of Maggie’s want with a pent up passion and fevour that has been building up inside of her for the better part of the last 27 years of her life.

Sydney tries desperately to commit everything to memory – the way Maggie likes to smile into their kiss when their noses awkwardly bump and how Maggie’s breath hitches every time Sydney trails her fingers down the nape of Maggie’s neck.

But most of all, Sydney tries to commit to memory what Maggie tastes like. Maggie tastes like all of her hopes, dreams and fears and if she’s being honest – a little salty, tart and sweet all at the same time.

 

Oh, and kind of _unkosher_.

Sydney recognises the faint taste of crab in her mouth and all of sudden, she can’t pull away from Maggie fast enough, not with the way Maggie’s lips are still pressed against hers swallowing up any and every single sound Sydney is trying to make to catch her attention.

It takes about two seconds though for Maggie to realise that Sydney is not exactly kissing her back, before she’s pulling away to see what’s wrong. The words are sort of stuck in the back of Sydney’s throat, but she manages to utter them anyway:

“The crab.”

The two words send Maggie into a frenzied mess and there’s a rush of ‘Oh my God’s and more ‘I’m so sorry, Sydney!’s from Maggie than Sydney can count, before the both of them are just grabbing at any possible thing that might sanitise Sydney’s _unkosher_  mouth.

* * *

It takes exactly two water bottles, five breath mints, and one midnight call to Sydney's local rabbi (which goes _surprisingly_ unanswered), before Sydney is even sufficiently convinced that her mouth is somewhat kosher again and by the end of it, Maggie and Sydney are just both so tired that they’ve resorted to sitting cross-legged on some crates boxes stacked outside the restaurant. When Sydney finally manages to get over the embarrassment of it all to look over at Maggie, Sydney finds Maggie looking like she's trying to stifle her laughter from the complete absurdity of the situation, which has just occurred.

Sydney defensively folds her arms across her chest. “Oh grow up, Dr. Lin. Just because I like girls does not mean that I am no longer an Orthodox Jew and that I will breaking kosher - ”

“It’s not that, I promise,” Maggie shakes her head, smiling.

A look of confusion spreads across Sydney's face. “So, what are you smiling about then?”

“I was just thinking about how many types of food I would have to give up, if I wanted to kiss you on a more frequent basis.”

“Oh my god, bacon that’s another one,” Maggie’s jaw slacks, as she feigns agony, and Sydney thinks about how impossible it is not to fall in love with Maggie, when she just always knows exactly what to say at all the right times.

“I’ll email you a list of all the relevant kosher and non-kosher foods,” Sydney says, half-jokingly half-seriously.

Maggie bites her lip, trying to suppress the grin quickly spreading across her face. “Look, we don’t have to take this fast Sydney. I don’t expect you to come out to your parents or the Orthodox community right now," Maggie pauses to think, "- although you might kind of want to tell Herschel. We can go as slow or as fast as you want to. But I can promise you that I will be right beside you whenever you do decide that you want to go through it all.”

Maggie clears her throat. “So, do you have cheat days in Judaism by any chance, because I’m not exactly sure whether I can actually part with bacon,”.

Sydney looks at Maggie pointedly. "I'd recommend laying off the bacon if you still want to kiss me, Dr. Lin,"

"Touche."

Maggie lifts herself from the crate boxes and walks over to where Sydney is sitting, before offering her hand to pull Sydney up. "Ok, let's try this, then". 

Sydney looks up at Maggie, furrowing her eyebrows together, "Try what?".

"You said you didn't know whether you would be able to hold my hand walking down the street,"

"Right now?" Sydney glances around them. It's almost 1 in the morning now and the streets are mostly empty, except for a few cars and the odd passer-by. Sydney thinks about what this will mean for her. For the rest of her life.

"I am being completely serious, Dr. Katz." Maggie says straight-faced, folding her arms across her chest. 

Maggie sticks out her arm again, "Baby steps, ok?"

Sydney takes Maggie's hand.  

 


End file.
